Looks Like the PS3 Has Been Hacked Again, and This Time It's a Doozy

I'd hate to be a Sony employee and then find out that a new PSN-enabled custom firmware has been released to hacked consoles, and then finding out that there's widespread publication of the console's LV0 decryption keys, which apparently, "blows the system wide open." Because that's what happened to Sony. And it looks mighty tricky for the Japanese manufacturer.

The guys over at Eurogamer's Digital Foundry have quite a lot to say on the matter, but most importantly, they say that "Options Sony has in battling this leak are limited." That doesn't sound too good.

"The release of the new custom firmware - and the LV0 decryption keys in particular - poses serious issues. While Sony will almost certainly change the PSN passphrase once again in the upcoming 4.30 update, the reveal of the LV0 key basically means that any system update released by Sony going forward can be decrypted with little or no effort whatsoever."

While in the past Sony has been plugging the holes here and there with software updates, this time it looks like the company has a massive sinkhole that they won't be able to patch up so easily. What implications this hack has for the PS3 can be quite startling for Sony, with piracy potentially being the worst thing on their minds.

However, much like iOS jailbreak software, some good could come out of this, but of course, Sony would want to stamp out anything that isn't locked into their own walled garden. What's next for the PlayStation is anyone's guess, but it's going to get a whole lot more interesting in the near future with a better possibility of homebrew apps and more custom fun. [Eurogamer via BBC, Cheers Lester_Bangs!]